Prisoners of War's Design
by Shadowolf27
Summary: "You and I commander, war is our sculptor and we are prisoners to its design." ME3, series of one-shots.
1. Prisoners of War's Design

**Author's note**: Originally, all of the one-shots featured here were posts on a forum in response to pictures I had taken of my character during an ME3 playthrough. After a while I collected a good amount of write ups from select scenes so I decided to post them all here for others to enjoy at any time they wished. Most of the text is original but some of it has been altered for readability.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Mass Effect 3

**Prisoners of War's Design**

* * *

**File Opened - Bio- Mercedes Shepard.**

Mercedes Shepard was the equivalent of an Earth duct rat. She had always possessed a knack for sneaking around undetected, a habit born out of necessity, and continually had an ear to the ground. Gangs paid her to sneak into hideouts to learn whatever she could from following and listening in on a target's conversation or she was paid for intellect she already possessed. In her teen years a boy she often ran into on the streets by the name of Taz taught her how to hack high security files, a skill set that became invaluable as she took higher paying jobs in the corporate world. Mercedes thought she would continue to build on the career she had created for herself, that was, until she got in over her head...

Hackett trained his pistol on the intruder in his home, but it was not the seasoned assassin he was expecting. A whip-thin teenager stood frozen over his computer, hiding her surprise with an expression as neutral as a hardened mask

"There's nothing useful in there. The most interesting thing I keep is a banking statement. If you want high security information on the alliance you'll have to break into headquarters."

She heard the threat in his tone, but being unarmed and unable to afford donning armor in her line of work, Mercedes slowly retreated from the computer to the darker corner of the room. The admiral's blue eyes shone in the dull light of his desk lamp as he approached and Mercedes stood her ground, watching intently for the moment the man pulled the trigger. Hackett glanced at the downloading files on his computer then gave his full attention to the teenager, an agressive spark in her eye drawing his attention.

"You know, the Alliance could use skilled people like you."

Shortly after the incident Mercedes joined the military, after being blackmailed by Admiral Hackett, and learned to hone her skills in infiltration to become proficient in combat. Hacking is a primary hobby she often deploys on the battle field to turn enemy machines into her personal army and she often prefers to use her tech abilities coupled with a rapid firing assault rifles to quickly eliminate targets.

**-File Closed-**

* * *

When Mercy came upon Mordin, hailing the elevator to take him up the tower that was falling apart around them, she tried her best to stall him in hopes the structure would collapse before he could enter. However, he saw right through her and whirled to face her, rage filling his eyes. "I made a mistake!"

Mercedes had steeled herself to sabotage the cure but her gut clinched at the words admitting to what had been plaguing his consciousness for years.

She was no diplomat and felt she had no right to dictate the fate of an entire race. A thousand years ago the galaxy had deemed the krogan too dangerous so Mercy agreed with the genophage. It was the same reason she destroyed the rachni queen three years ago, and again – with a bioengineered construct created by the reapers - less than a week ago. They were a species damned a long time ago before she was even born.

"Mordin! This is bigger than either of us! Than-this! I _need _the salarians; they're the galaxies only hope!"

Mordin turned his back on her, his fist clinched and gait stiff, he refused to stop even when Mercy drew her pistol on him.

"Mordin, wait!" Her trigger finger shook and her vision blurred with white panic. How could she shoot a man so determined to right a wrong? Should she pull the trigger and deny him and an entire race freedom from the genophage curse? Mercy never spoke much with the brilliant scientist but-

"Thank you Shepard."

He was gone, whisked away by the elevator that had been where her gun was still pointing.

"Damn you, Mordin," she murmured. "Don't make me regret this."

* * *

Garrus noted the unfocused gaze of his commander as she leaned over the command console, recently cleaned of the dirt from the last mission, but looking even worse without the grime.

"Losing Mordin, I know it can't be easy. Get some rest Shepard," he urged. "I'll notify you if anything goes wrong."

"Yeah," she sighed. "I don't know if it will matter."

Her sleep was fitful and wrought the voices of the dead until Mercy started awake, feeling sore, sweaty, and shaky. She climbed out of bed to wash her face and stared unfocused at her reflection in the mirror, wondering if she had been wrong to let Mordin go. Should she have saved the rachni queen on Noveria? Should Ash be alive instead of Kaidan?

A chime shocked her attention toward the door.

"Shepard, I hope this isn't a bad time- this isn't a bad time, is it?"

Mercy shook her shoulders and rolled her neck until it made a satisfying _pop_ before leaving the bathroom.

"Liara? No, now is fine."

Her asari friend looked her up and down, analyzing Mercy's reddened eyes.

"If you need to talk I could-"

"Not right now."

"But I-"

"No."

"Ok, but if there's anything-"

"Is there something that needs my immediate attention?"

"No but-"

Mercy shuffled to her desk that was riddled with rough drafts from her recent mission report and began piling them into a neat stack. "Then I don't want to hear it right now. I'm sorry. Please just leave me alone right now."

"As you wish, Shepard."

Liara took her leave, her smothering worry following behind her like a mist.

Mercy fingered the papers in her hand and felt a stab of regret for pushing her old friend away, but she couldn't face Liara right now, her tear ducts wouldn't be able to hold up. She crushed the papers, wadded them into as tight of a ball as she could manage, and threw it into the trash before leaving the room.

Mercy paced the crew deck, waiting for her coffee to brew while the ship personal watched her over forks and the rims of their drinks. She felt the weight of their stares like dozens of bullets striking her shield and was glad when the brewing machine drizzled out her dark roast concoction. She took her coffee black and walked to the elevator with restrained haste and found her feet dragging her to the engineering deck out of habit.

"Commander Shepard! I would like a word with you, an hour at most."

Mercy admired Aller's helpful and exceptional reporting skills most days, but right now she did _not_ want to deal with anymore krogan politics.

Mercy pretended to not hear the woman and kept walking towards a door she was becoming oddly familiar with. Behind it she found Javik washing his hands of in his giant sink and eager to provide what information he had learned about the Normandy's first crew.

"I still can't wrap my head around that, reading information like you do," she admitted, truly amazed by how alien the protheans were, Javik included.

He spoke of the cosmic imperative, how the weak die so others can live, and Liara's distinct dislike of his views. Then he contemplated, from Liara's reasoning's, if he might have been something different if he had been born in Shepard's cycle. Mercy assured him he would probably still be a soldier; she couldn't see him any other way. After a pause she asked, "Does it get to you?"

"You and I commander, war is our sculptor and we are prisoners to its design."

The truth of Javik's words bore into Mercy like a seed and spread its toxic roots through her veins, sickening her.

"Maybe not much longer." Her voice grew thicker with each word and a grim conviction solidified in her heart. "We win this and we'll both be set free."


	2. Lost Time

**Author's Note:** I apologize if the content seems a bit jumpy or lacking a certain depth to them, but as I said before, these were small snippets written to fit pictures I had posted on a forum.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Mass Effect

**Lost Time**

* * *

Mercy's legs shook from absorbing the weight of her fall and she stumbled into a fighting stance, pistol held high as she raced out of the elevator.

"Shepard, what's going on?" Kaidan lowered his weapon with confusion coloring his words as Mercy aimed past his head.

"Step aside Kaidan; you're not the one I want. Udina is a dead man."

The human councilor stormed to Kaidan's side but stopped short of passing him, the coward. "Shepard's blocking our escape. She's with Cerberus!"

Kaidan gave her a pleading set of eyes that filled her with mirth. She was done explaining herself to the former lieutenant. He made it clear a long time ago that he would never listen.

Udina shook his head in impatience and quickly walked to the command console. "I'm opening the lock."

Mercy tried to move around Kaidan but he mirrored her paces, blocking her shot.

Her scars stretched into a grizzled snarl. "Would I do this if I weren't dead certain Kaidan? Would I?" She dared him to defy her just so she would have a reason to show him the price of not believing her, now and in the past.

Kaidan closed his eyes tightly and released a deep breath through his nostrils before swiveling to face Udina. "I better not regret this."

Mercy lowered her pistol and tried to smile but she couldn't manage it. "You won't."

* * *

After Cerberus' attempted coup, Mercy rushed to the hospital, her head spinning with the complications from the attack. Inside the crowded medical building she confronted Kolyat, it was only the second time they had met, and she asked if he had known about Thane's impending death. Kolyat tilted his head downwards and ushered her inside to his father's bedside.

Mercy and Thane never got along, she would tell anyone about how they'd always argued while he served on the Normandy when in reality he had stood by and allowed her to verbally berate him with a quiet frown plastered to his face. It was only after she helped Thane rescue his son that he learned Mercy's deep seated hate was not for him, but his relationship with Kolyat.

A few evenings after sorting Kolyat into working under Baily, Shepard had indulged in too much alcohol and spewed the anger that had been stewing ever since her parents abandoned her on earth in the middle of a dirty, downtown street. She damned them for never coming back and saving her from becoming a free-lancer spy for the local gangs and cursed Thane for running away from his responsibilities as a father.

"Shepard, I'm dying and I have come to terms with it, but I am no longer at peace. There are things I must do, things that mustn't wait any longer."

The assassin she had come to know uttered such words that would have been normal for any dying man, but for Thane, it was blasphemous.

Mercy cleared her throat. "I've never known you to be afraid, now's not the time to start."

Kolyat stepped next to her and presented an open prayer book.

"Would you like to read with me? Thane- my father requested it."

Mercy didn't what had come over her when she complied and read the words on the page.

"Kalahira, this one's heart is pure, but beset by wickedness and contention. Guide this one, Kalahira…and she will be a companion to you, as she was to me." After last words died on her lips, Thane was gone.

"Kolyat?" she asked, hesitantly, after closing Thane's eyes with care. "Why did the last verse say she?"

* * *

Mercy tried to make it back to the Normandy without drawing attention but to her dismay Kaidan was waiting for her at the docking station with a big, dumb smile on his face and looking to all the world like a stray dog looking for its master.

"Shepard, hey, how's it going?"

"Kaidan," Mercy clipped in greeting.

He noted the way she crossed her arms and looked solely at his eyes, Kaidan sobered. "Back there, it got a bit rough, didn't it?"

Mercy nodded. "A bit but we handled it." She had a sneaking suspicion as to where this conversation was going and she didn't like it, not one bit.

Kaidan looked out at the docked Normandy, thinking of something that appeared to trouble him.

"What would you have done if I hadn't backed down?"

She started, the question throwing her off guard. Mercy had expected another berating for joining Cerberus and a small part of her had hoped he was about to apologize for all of the previous times he had verbally injured her. Anything but- _this_.

She steeled her voice, caging the emotions she felt bubbling to the surface. "It doesn't matter. The council is safe and Cerberus was defeated."

Kaidan shook his head with a grim tug of his lips and disappointment coloring his features. "Sometimes a way something goes down does matter, but for what it's worth, I'm glad we got out of there intact."

Mercy was boiling on the inside. How dare he chastise her for her decision or the implications of what she _might_ have done?

She clinched her jaw. "Maybe not."

Kaidan and she were oil and water. They never saw eye-to-eye and nothing about their personal lives or pasts were ever shared between them. She didn't even know his favorite dish. Their relationship was based too much on the physical realm. After spending more than a year apart from him, she had come to the realization that she wanted something real, not a boy-toy to hang off her arm.

"Admiral Hackett gave me a position you know," Kaidan began, filling in the heavy silence. "I'm tempted but, if you would have me, I would be on the Normandy in a second, with you."

Mercy's heart fluttered and her imagination threatened to run wild but she clamped down on the foolish feelings before it could take root and control her.

"I think your skills would be better served under Hackett."

She watched the subtle display of emotion play out on Kaidan's face, the twitching of his eye brows and mouth, the tilting of his head. Finally he stood straight, his face indiscernible, and saluted her.

"It has been an honor, Shepard."

They parted ways for the last time.

* * *

Nice job." Joker praised Mercy's uncanny abilities to accomplish the impossible, including single handedly stopping a massacre on the council by Cerberus. He then added with a quieter tone, "I-hope major Alinko is happy with his new post."

Mercy balled her hands into fists and bore holes into the back of Joker's chair with her gaze. "It's war time Joker. We all go where we're ordered to."

"Understood. Just for the record though..." Joker hopped out of his seat and began to hobble her way. Shepard expected him to add, "I need to use the little boys room," and continue on past, but he stopped before her.

Only a couple feet away Joker stood at attention, no doubt a painful pose with his condition, and saluted Mercy without a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"What's that?" she asked, baffled.

"Somebody giving you the respect you deserve, Commander."

He turned and made his way back to his seat after rendering Mercy nearly speechless.

"Thanks," she murmured and bowed her head.


	3. In Need of a Friend

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Mass Effect

**In Need of a Friend**

* * *

Mercy was floored when she opened her inbox and read a pile of requests from her squad mates. Nearly all of them wanted to relax or catch up on the Citadel upon next shore leave. Even Javik had taken the time to learn how communication was handled in her cycle just so he could send her a private message. He still managed to complain about how primitive the email system was while nearly demanding she come see him on the Citadel.

Her amused smile fell when she came across a letter from Kaidan. He was wishing her luck, yet he still he managed to sprinkle salt on wounds she thought had fully healed. She only read half of the email before deleting it.

Mercy abandoned her terminal to dig through the closet, her shined armor taking up the bulk of it, and pulled out a black dress that Allers had given her to wear during interviews. Mercy never wore the thing; instead opting to wear her battle scarred armor. The masses didn't need to see glamour or tight alliance uniforms; they needed someone who fought on the front lines and could tell them plainly about the war raging around them. Mercy wasn't a politician and she certainly wasn't good at dealing with people, so she skirted the politics and made sure that the names of the sacrificed weren't forgotten. It was the least she could do.

The dress felt odd as she squeezed into it, a bit more like a jumpsuit than formal wear. She was immediately missing the outfit Katsumi had lent her. The thing had been a victim of the collector attack along with several articles in her cabin. The illusive man still owed her a couple model ships, come to think of it. Mercy glanced in the mirror at the bags forming under her eyes and covered them with makeup. Today she wasn't dressing up for anyone in particular, it was simply for herself.

* * *

On the Citadel Garrus was the first to stop her. He was leaning against a taxi stand smiling at her in his turian way.

"Shepard, glad you came. I figured you would want to do something that didn't involve reapers for once."

"I don't think they've conquered the bar yet," she snarked, and earned a reverberating chuckle.

Garrus waved her into a taxi car and she complied with piqued curiosity. He flew the cab with precision through the Citadel's traffic and came to a stop atop a bridge. Mercy raised an eyebrow at Garrus as he leapt out of the cab and his highly illegal parking spot.

"Figured it's time to do something stupid just for the hell of it. Might be the last chance we ever get," he said without looking at her.

Mercy walked up to his back, her heels clicking noisily on the metal surface, and lightly shoved him forwards. "How about a dive in the pool?" They both looked over the edge and down at the lake spanning the length of the presidium.

Garrus deflected the idea by describing flailing turians followed by bouts of drowning.

Mercy tilted her head upwards. "You're right. I would just have to save your ass again."

Garrus gazed at the hovercar traffic above. "We've had a hell of a ride, haven't we Shepard?"

"Yeah, and it's times like these you know who your real friends are, and not the ones running around looking for an escape route. The ones who never give up on you. I'm lucky I can say I know someone like that." The words falling from her mouth felt sappy but not wrong. She meant every word. Garrus had been with her through thick and thin; Virmire, Ilos, and Cerberus.

Her turian turned to her with a smiling glint in his eye. "You're not going to propose marriage now are you?"

Mercy chuckled, a sound more jovial than she felt. She had asked him, in what felt like ages ago, if he wanted to 'relieve stress' with her. It seemed like a good idea in the nervous heat of the moment, but after thinking on it a while, and upon seeing Garrus' uncomfortable approach to the idea,  
she backed out of her own suggestion. He really was her best friend and she never wanted to ruin that.

* * *

Joker was waiting at Purgatory's bar, his eyes glazed over as he stared out over the dance floor.

"Something on your mind?"

Joker didn't seem all that surprised when Shepard moseyed up next to him, a drink already sloshing her hand, as she leaned up against the bar. He began talking about people dancing freely without a care, even if it made them look stupid. She found it appropriate that he managed to squeeze in a mentioning of flailing arms, before he finally told her what was really bothering him.

"What do you think about me and EDI?"

Mercy felt a pang of jealously she never knew could exist and felt the world spin a little. Maybe it was the alcohol but she figured she had nothing to lose and shamelessly suggested, "You know, with all this interest in EDI, it's possible you've over looked other options."

Joker lit up with surprise and she noted how he shifted his eyes in a way that had always meant he was uncomfortable or nervous.

"I've served with you since the day you took command. I'd follow you into hell."

"-but, not into my quarters," she slurred with reddened cheeks that had nothing to do with the concoction she had set on the bar. Though smiling stiffly on the outside, Mercy was ready to run for the exit like a vorcha on fire.

"I'm not Kaidan, I don't think it would work with both of us in uniform." The words stung but she appreciated him taking the time to put her down gently as opposed to the way Kaidan had shut her down. The emails he sent felt more like insults than apologies.

"And EDI doesn't wear a uniform," she concluded.

"Well, yeah. What do you think?" He sincerely wanted her opinion even right after turning her down. Mercy felt ashamed and flattered, a strange feeling that twisted her insides, so she gave him her most blunt and honest opinion.

"Jeff, you have brittle bones, she's made of metal," Mercy cringed at her own words even as she said them.

Joker bowed his head and fingered his drink. "Yeah, you're right. It's stupid."

She didn't like the faraway look that was returning to his eyes and was acutely aware of how much she owed him: Her life, her support, her friendship; something that she felt the need to return. Right now. She swiped his drink away and Joker looked up in surprise.

"You deserve to be stupid," she reprimanded. "If you could be out on the dance floor would you be waving your arms? It sounds like you have bigger things to worry about than looking stupid."

Mercy watched his eyes shift over the dance floor and back at his drink her hand before finally resting on her eyes that bore into him, daring him to move forward.

"Yeah, I guess I do. Now if you'll excuse me-"

* * *

Mercy was on her way to the spectre office when she spotted Javik looking out over the presidium with narrowed eyes, his natural state when deep in thought. Remembering his email, she scooted up next to him without touching his shoulder. He didn't so much as glance sideways, but he always had a knack for recognizing others through what he described to be an electric energy that surrounded all beings.

"Hell of a view, isn't it?" They never started their conversations with 'hellos' or pleasantries and she liked it that way. Everything with him was always to the point, no sugar coating or underhanded meanings. It was a breath of fresh air from councilors, politicians, and panhandling merchants withholding supplies she desperately needed.

True to his character, Javik launched his thoughts at her as though his internal processes had simply switched to verbal. "The Citadel was both the heart of our civilization and its demise. No one I knew had ever seen the Citadel. To be here now...I don't know what to think."

Mercy remembered Javik telling her the Citadel had been taken long before he was born. There was always a wishful look in his alien eyes that told her he had always wanted to see it in his people's glory days.

She knew exactly what he should think. "It might not seem like much but a prothean is standing here, alive. That's a victory in itself."

"Perhaps." He began telling stories had heard of the Citadel during his own time and Mercy soaked in the child-like wonder in his voice. It had been a long time since she had heard any such fantastical stories that spoke of better times and places that were untouchable except with the imagination.

"Pardon me. This one expects you are a prothean."

Mercy and Javik swiveled around at the echoing voice and she inwardly groaned at the undulating hanar that towered above them.

Javik approached the jelly-like alien, placing a hand on its 'face', and Mercy wondered for a moment if she shouldn't distract her prothean and drag him away to meet Joker in Purgatory. The hanar were easily offended and Javik wasn't the most subtle character. The last thing she wanted was a political incident.

Javik took a step back, removing his hand from the hanar's head. "I remember when your kind were still minnows in the ocean."

Mercy joined the conversation, as amused by the situation as she was cautious, and provided an informative yet warning statement to Javik. "They consider your kind to be their gods."

He glanced at her then back at the hanar. "A pity we did not teach them to speak better." So he wasn't going to follow her advice, just her luck. Either that or he really was just that socially inadequate.

An asari and turian broke away from a crowd around a couple of C-sec officers; they had no doubt overheard the hanar that was literally vibrating with joy, and began questioning Javik with nervous gestures.

"For many there may be no hope-" Mercy cringed the same time the eavesdroppers lowered their heads in despair.

Javik was ramping up to tell one of his vivid descriptions of his people's war with the reapers that was really a slaughter, and Mercy caught his shoulder when he paced by her.

"Uh, Javik, I don't think that's going to work." With her guiding eyes Javik finally realized the negative effect he was exuding.

"-but you are still alive now, and that is a miracle."

Mercy listened to his inspirational words and was amazed how well he switched gears. Honestly, it was the most positive speech she had ever heard him give and found her own hopes rising. She sometimes forgot he used to be a commander himself.

"Commander Shepard. It must be an honor to have a prothean fighting alongside you." Mercy was amidst her own thoughts on the war when the asari startled her.

"I'm just glad he's on our side," Mercy told her, throwing a mischievous grin at Javik. She did enjoy having him around. In fact, he went on nearly every mission and was always right there covering her back. "You haven't seen him get angry."

Javik didn't miss a beat. "Neither have you commander."

Mercy felt heat rise in her face and a smile stretched her scars thin. It took all of her willpower to not burst out laughing.


	4. Perseverance

**Author's Note:** This was the 'chapter' that broke the camel's back. I wrote this upcoming scene to go with a pic I was planning to post but the text just kept growing until it exceeded what was acceptable on a fast moving forum. I debated posting this as a stand-alone one-shot but decided to string together all of my previous posts so they wouldn't be lost.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Mass Effect.

** Perseverance**

* * *

Mercy had heard of the atrocities committed in Javik's cycle by both the protheans and the reapers, had listened to his stories of when his people turned the rachni into living weapons, when the reapers turned entire species' young into husks, and even less pleasant indications of what had been violated to create tools of war. None of his words or implications had sunk in until Mercy came across Sanctuary. The Illusive Man had voluntarily lured non-combatant refugees to a facility just so he could turn them into test subjects. He was turning humanity into slaves, weapons, she couldn't believe her eyes. Javik noted the dilation of her pupils and the way her mouth twitched with wordless anger.

He spoke in a soft bass that lacked the intensity with which he usually upheld; it was full of grim familiarity, neither chastising nor scolding in the wake of her lost nativity. "Yes, this process is known to me. You do not kill what can be useful. I'm sorry commander."

Mercy's hand twitched over the keyboard then balled into a fist. "So...it would seem. We're going to need a really big bomb."

Javik stayed silent, deciding to keep his disagreement to himself, for which Mercy was grateful. She might have flung a coffee mug or some other desk object at his giant prothean head. She knew he would justify all of this deceit by seeing another weapon that could be used against the reapers, a way to steal the enemies own slaves. Mercy silently vowed that if, in this war, she couldn't keep her dignity intact, she would at least keep her humanity.

* * *

The night before the assault on Cerberus' headquarters, Mercy was pacing her cabin, chewing her nails and staring periodically at the notes strewn about her desk. She had planned for every possible counter attack, mapped strategies, tested simulations, and calibrated the aim of her weapons seven times. She kept fingering her Phaeston, testing the familiar weight, and aiming it an invisible enemy on the other side of her fish tank. She was possessed by an all-consuming _itch _to march into Cerberus' headquarters and riddle every traitor there full of bullet holes.

"Shepard, you will be too exhausted to fight if you do not rest."

Mercy glared at the intercom that filtered EDI's disembodied voice through the room and growled, "I can't, not until I get the Prothean VI."

EDI didn't argue, probably smart of her, or so Mercy thought. She was _not_ in the mood to be ordered around. Mercy dropped her weapon on the bed and headed towards the door. Her cabin was too comfortable and quiet; she needed something to distract her thoughts.

On autopilot she punched the button for the engineer deck and soon found herself knocking on Javik's door. She hoped he was awake. The automatic doors parted and she took the invitation. Inside Javik was seated on the floor, surrounded by parts from his disassembled weapon, he stood upon her entry.

"I wonder if we shouldn't just deploy now." Mercy blurted, circling her arms around herself, and began pacing in the small space by the door. "I mean, we have everything we need, there's no reason to wait."

Javik grabbed her elbow and halted her habitual movement. "Steel yourself commander. I would like nothing more than to rend the enemy until they bled but this cannot be rushed. Your fleet needs time to assemble. Without it we would be running to our deaths."

Mercy bore a hole into the floor with her eyes, her shoulder muscles and jaw held taught.

"There was a Normandy before this one, you died in an attack."

She glanced at Javik, wondering where he was going with such a sudden and unpleasant topic. "Something like that," she said neutrally.

"But then you were resurrected to fight the reapers."

She shrugged stiffly. "Maybe we have something in common."

Javik hadn't died but she could imagine slumbering for fifty thousand years and waking up as the last of your kind to feel pretty darn close.

His flanged voice vibrated in her ear and sent her mind whirling with the weight of the words they carried. "The reasons you fight are still alive, the friendships of the people around you. Are they the reason you wish to continue living?"

She looked at him now, and was astonished at how readily her answer came. "My crew has become my family. We've stared death in the face more times than I can count. Things like that bind people together in ways I can't really explain." When the last words dropped from her mouth she had a sinking feeling that the conversation was no longer about herself.

"Yes." His answer was clipped yet she sensed anger and thoughtfulness behind it. She turned fully towards him as he paced away, placed both hands on the rim of his sink, and stared into the rippling water. She could tell something had been on his mind for a while and that he was struggling to voice his thoughts.

She coaxed him. "What about you? I respect your reasons for being here, but I suspect there's something more, Javik."

He glanced sideways at an object on a far table, a thin piece of metal that looked suspiciously like a miniature beacon. "It is an echo shard. It is all that is left of my people, it holds their memories."

Mercy approached the suspended shard that rotated on an invisible axis created by tiny mass effect fields, but didn't dare touch it. She wasn't in the mood for any more headaches today. She studied it and tried to puzzle together what Javik was hinting at. It had been sitting here, floating innocently since the day Javik became apart of her crew and she had seen him look at it longingly; but he had never placed his hands on it.

"And you don't want to remember that?" She deduced.

"Imagine if you had forgotten what the very sky looked like over your home world and were given the chance to see it again, but there was a price. All of the pain and suffering you had ever experienced were a part of that memory." Javik come to stand next to her, reading her reaction, probably 'smelling' her emotions as he waited in anticipation for the answer.

Mercy tapped the table once, twice, before stilling her hand in thought. What if she had forgotten what earth looked like? Would she want to remember the dirty streets she had grown up on? The horrors she had seen committed in the shadows and the dirty work she had done to get by? Granted, she had enjoyed stealing information, digital and verbal. It was an honest job compared to some of the other distasteful things that happened in the deep underground where gangs thrived.

She thought of Taz, the boy who had taught her how to hack and become her first real acquaintance. They weren't friends, not really, but neither of them ever had the intention of stabbing the other in the back. Mercy felt she was digressing from the real topic and found she had no real answer. The horrors that Javik had seen – her own experiences paled in comparison. Sanctuary had opened her eyes to what a reaper war could become, and she didn't even want to imagine what atrocities could exist in a galaxy that had been fighting the soulless, juggernaut machines for centuries.

"We have an old saying," she said at last. "Let old ghosts rest…If you can live by it."

Javik's quad eyes brushed over the shard. "Perhaps you are right. There were soldiers who served under me, like your crew," He looked at her and Mercy struggled to not to turn away. She could sense unease in his statement, a question that had been eating him for a long, long time.

She hazard one of her own, an inquiry that she knew she didn't want the answer to. "What happened to them?"

Javik opened his mouth but no words came out until he had turned his back. "They are dead, where I left them."

She had no words to express the harsh squeeze in her chest or the feeling of thousands of needles pricking her skin, digging in as deeply as they could go. Mercy couldn't help but imagine if her own crew had died, her friends, her comrades. The ones she trusted her life with a thousand times over after the trialing fires of combat and political B.S. What if it had been her fault? The thought of all of them dead rendered her breathless and hollow.

Her words came out tattered, rubbing raw against her throat. "I'm, so sorry."

Javik glanced back at her clouded grey eyes. "Do not mourn the lost, commander. This is why we fight, to rid the reapers of the galaxy. I can say with confidence that they died fighting the enemy so we could continue to do the same."

Mercy clamped down on her jaw, not wanting to show the doubt that flooded her.

Javik approached her so quickly that she flinched backwards and resisted the urge to flip him on his back when he grabbed a hold of both her shoulders, pinning her arms at her sides. Instantaneously, upon his touch, Mercy was bombarded with familiar emotions. An intense array of guilt, sorrow, fury, hopelessness, doubt, fondness, hope, and conviction shocked through her nerves with the intensity of a lightning storm.

He released her and Mercy resisted gravity as it threatened to topple her over, Javik steadied her.

"You are not alone in this fight, remember that."

Mercy swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded. "I know that now. Thank you."


	5. Beginning of the End

**Author's note:** I was surprised at how many people reviewed, and I thank you for your enthusiasm. I'll have a special treat at the end of the next 'chapter' which will conclude this short series of oneshots.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Mass Effect.

**Beginning of the End**

* * *

Mercy shook a bottle of Ice Brandy in front of Chakwas and grinned when the woman's face lit up.

"You didn't?" Chakwas pulled a bottle opener out of her desk drawer, earning a quirked brow from Mercy, and motioned for the Shepard to set the bottle down.

"With all that's going on, I say we have a toast, right now. What do you say commander?"

Mercy took a seat and with an empty glass the good doctor had offered her. "Hell yes."

An hour after pouring the first glass, both of them were feeling groggy and slippery of the tongue.

Chakwas dropped her glass on the table harder than necessary and laughed, loud and full. "I remember when you had that scar from when you were a little kid. The one right under your eye. Then you went and died and got a whole lot of new scars. Glowing ones."

Mercy leaned back in her seat. "Yep, I remember paying a lot to get rid of those things," she slurred. "They _just_wouldn't heal!"

"Of course not. Not with your dour outlook on life."

"_Pft_, I'm just re-alistic."

"As realistic as those new scars that human husk made while trying to tear your face off. I had a brilliant time stitching those up. All of that money you spent on repairing your face, wasted."

Mercy glared at Chakwas over the rim of her glass. "As long as they're not _glowing_."

* * *

The stench of sulfur, rotten flesh and oil blasted Mercy's as she jumped from the cruiser into the thick smoke of London. The city was nothing but a pile of rubble decorated by collapsed skyscrapers and over turned hover cars long that had been long since abandoned. It was ground zero for the war with the reapers and the last place the galaxy would take a stand against them. She tried not to imagine what the rest of earth looked like.

The fight to reach the command post was made through tooth and nail, sprays of bullets and the smell of charred flesh. The Alliance outpost her team reached was dug in deep, walled in by containers and tanks. This would be their last chance to catch their breath, and their last words.

"So I guess this is-"

"Just like old times?"

The scars running across Mercy's face stretched into a rueful smile as she interrupted Garrus, softening his train of thought, and providing a slightly happier topic. His eyes narrowed regretfully and his mandibles tightened.

"Yeah." he cleared his throat. It might be the last chance we get to say that."

Mercy felt a part of her knock loose and fall away. She couldn't help but ask him, "You think we're going to lose?" Her voice waivered as she felt her doubts brake open in front of him.

Garrus straightened and towered over her, a wall between her and the beam that would surely be her grave. She had no illusions that she would be coming out of this alive.

"No," he told her resolutely. "We're going to kick the reapers back to whatever black hole they crawled out of and then we're going to retire somewhere warm and tropical."

Mercy crossed her arms, a small gesture that gave her some sense of control, and managed to crack a smile, if only for him.

"I wouldn't know what to do with all my time, neither would you."

"Sign autographs?"

"We haven't won yet." Her voice waivered again. She should walk away now before she broke down, but they would never get another chance to talk, this was it. Mercy stayed rooted.

Garrus broke eye contact, looked off to the side, and began to mumble. "Vega told me about an old saying here on earth." He looked at her then, his voice a little wistful. "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead. I'm not sure if turian heaven is the same but if this thing goes sideways-"

He was rambling now, his tongue unable to voice what he felt, but Mercy had a good idea.

"-and we both end up there, meet me at the bar," he finished.

The cartoonish picture that entered her head of Garrus and she making a mess of some afterlife elicited a shallow chuckle from her lips. "Shepard and Vikarian storming heaven."

"Maybe not today." He leaned forward, a welcoming presence full of warmth in the cold streets of London, and placed a talon on her shoulder. "And Mercy, forgive the insubordination, but this old friend has an order for you. Go out there and give them hell, you were born to do this."

She grasped his talon, squeezed itm and looked him steadily in the eye. A vow fell from her mouth in a tangled mess that made her feel as if she should have been drunk already. "If I'm up in that bar, and you're not, I'll be looking down, and I'll always have your back. You're the best friend I've ever had, and the first real one I ever made. I just wanted you to know that."

* * *

"Was it this bad in your time?" Mercy stepped beside Javik at the edge of a blown out window and gazed out at the beam in the distance, a marker she knew that signified her grave as much as the end of the war.

"Worse. In our cycle, the races never came together. There was no rallying cry. I envy you."

Somehow she found that hard to believe. "Really? There's not much left out there."

Her eyes trailed over the destroyed buildings and billowing fires. The sun was blotted out by their smoking stacks and the only source of light came from the harsh, pulsating beam.

Javik crossed his arms behind his back; a pose fostered by habit in many soldiers who had something important on their mind. "There is still a future out there, something my people could never say. There _will_ be a tomorrow."

Mercy cast her eyes downward, her mind racing with images of what would happen to the galaxy if she failed. "Only if we win today."

Javik, for once, seemed oblivious to how much weight she felt crushing down on her shoulders, his mind occupied elsewhere.

"None in my time ever made it this far."

She saw he was mourning his people again, feeling he had failed _his_ galaxy.

Her arm twitched, an urge she couldn't pinpoint wanted her to place her hand on his shoulder in comfort, but she knew he would just push her away. He did not take kindly to pity. He was also probably the only one who never pitied her, something she was grateful for.

"You've come a long way, Javik," she reassured him, just as she had done many times before whenever she sensed his old wounds reopening, the loss of his people.

"And I look forward to fulfilling my mission."

He turned to face her, stepping a foot closer, a fire burning in his quad eyes. She saw for the first time the excitement that he had been feeling since they touched down in London. "But you are the Avatar of this cycle, the exemplar of victory. Not just for humanity, or turians, or protheans, but for all life. Every soul that has ever existed is watching this moment."

Mercy felt a nervousness bubble up in her chest, and as flattered as she felt she couldn't help but say, "We'll, when you put it that way, no pressure, huh?"

"Do not waver. Victory is never won without difficult choices."

She looked out at London again and the reapers firing at it from above. "I'll do whatever it takes. I didn't come this far to back down."

"A pity we did not know each other in my cycle."

Mercy blinked at the hand he held out to her, an invitation to shake it and exchange all of his and her emotions. She learned a while back that his hands were how he read and translated the biological markers of other being's memories, it was the reason he didn't like to be touched often. Now he was holding his hand out to her, willing to share such an intimate thing.

She took his three pronged hand, intending to shake it, but froze after squeezing it as his emotions slammed into her. There was the excitement she had recently discovered, flowing from him like an electric storm. Fury, strong and seeping represented his resolve to destroy the reapers. Then somewhere, among the flood of emotions, was a feeling she hadn't experienced in years.

Javik released her as if her hand had burned his.

"I-commander. Excuse me."

He made to turn away, the first time she had ever seen him run. Mercy caught his arm. "Wait, do you mean that?"

Javik averted his eyes, glancing at Wrex who was bellowing at his soldiers below, oblivious; the same way he'll never know how close she came to destroying his people.

"Forgive me. I don't know what came over me. It won't happen again."

"That's not what I asked. I said, do you mean that?"

He looked at her sideways, refusing to meet her head on, his stance submissive. "It is not my place."

Mercy cracked a smile to try and ease his suddenly fearful look. "Don't tell me your society had a punishment against liking someone."

"It is not my place," he repeated, and it was all the evidence she needed.

She had never felt anything for Javik beyond camaraderie, a fondness she felt for all of her crew, but when she thought about it, felt for that old feeling she had once experienced with Kaidan, it wasn't much different. He wasn't even human, something that should have perturbed her, but for some reason she welcomed it.

He had turned his eyes away again, narrowing them into slits as if awaiting punishment. His lowered position allowed Mercy to wrap her arms around his giant head, covering his eyes with her forearms, and she hugged him. He didn't resist.

"Don't hide how you really feel, you might regret it if you don't." She was speaking from experience.

Mercy released him and backed away to allow him to sort out his thoughts. A sensation was burning in her chest now, one that made her face red and filled her stomach with butterflies. Now was not the time to be realizing such feelings but they were impossible to stop, and so close to her own death, she would have like some sort of peace to hold onto as she left this world.

Before she knew what was happening, Javik had rounded on her, encircling her shorter frame in his arms, and hugged her in a crushing embrace. His armor dug uncomfortably into to her bullet proof vest but he was warm, something Mercy hadn't felt in years.

"I'm sorry commander."

She hugged him back as best as she could with the limited movement his embrace allowed, and dug her head into the crook of his neck. "Mercy-and don't be."


	6. World on Fire

**Author's note: **As promised, I have a treat at the end of this chapter.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Mass Effect.

World on Fire

* * *

Harbinger's duel beams sliced over the kill zone, obliterating soldiers and tanks making a suicidal dash for the device he was guarding. Mercy dodged a crashing helicopter; its wing blown off in the cross fire, and felt the blast of heat as it exploded. This was insane, absolutely _ludicrous_. The worst tactical move a commander could ever make. Alliance soldiers, turian and krogan included, were funneling through a flat stretch of concrete that once belonged to a road. The goal was to send a living wall towards the teleportation beam, the looming white beam ascending into the sky like a beacon, in hopes that at least _one_ of them would make. The Citadel's arms had to be opened; it was their only hope of winning the war against the reapers.

One of Harbinger's beams cut through another line of soldiers, fear coloring their eyes a moment they were disintegrated. Mercy covered her eyes against the heat of it, smearing sweat and dirt on her forehead. She was deafened by the sounds of death, grinding metal, and the squealing reaper beams as they charged.

She knew Garrus and Javik were close behind, following her right into this hell. She glanced back at them, checking on their position, and found they were sprinting for all they were worth. Despite the horrendous situation, even worse than when she had led her entire ship through the omega 4 relay, she couldn't help but feel a swell of pride in the pit of her stomach. Few ever got the chance serve with such dedicated soldiers, friends, or-more than friends.

She concentrated on the death run before her, dodging chunks of loose road and flying debris as they went sent sailing in the wake of Harbinger's assault. Her legs ached with the force of her all out sprint, sweat rolling down the back of her neck.

She ran behind a charging mako, planning to use its girth to shield her from the debris, when Harbinger's beam melted the ground in front of it. The shockwave sent the mako's front end flying; flipping the vehicle into a roll midair, and falling straight towards at her. Mercy panicked, her momentum too great to roll out of the way, and dropped to the ground. She hit the cement, painfully, on the side of her leg and slid along the ground, the fabric around her vest tearing away as she skidded to a halt. The mako landed on its side, its armor crushing against the ground with a shrieking crunch. It sent a murky plum of dirt and rock into the air and Mercy felt her foot connect with the vehicle's undercarriage. It would seem her insufferable luck to survive was still holding.

She glanced back to get her bearings, and to check on her squad to make sure they hadn't been harmed in the blast. They were still running towards her, their faces full of shock at her near death, and boring straight into her, before they whipped their gazes upwards. Mercy barely had time to catch her breath when a second mako slammed into the one she laid under, and it catapulted overhead, straight towards her squad.

_No! _She could only watch in horror as the tank landed right where they had been seconds before, its girth and exploding fuel take made it impossible for her to see the fate of her friends. Mercy picked herself up, a new burst of adrenaline flooding her system, and ran towards the wreckage, launching herself over the burning vehicle.

Garrus and Javik were still alive, moving at least, when she dropped down next to Javik who appeared to have received the worst of the blast. His leg was torn open and bleeding, his armor charred black and half melted. Garrus wasn't much better off but he was at least already starting to stand. Mercy grabbed Javik's arm and hauled it around her shoulders. She dragged him to the overturned Mako and dropped him under its limited protection. Garrus joined them, falling against the side of the vehicle, his eyes glazed over in pain.

She shouted into her comm. "Normandy, do you copy? I need an EVAC, right now!"

Mercy received a garbled reply broken by static, but in the distance she could see her ship lifting into the sky from where she had ordered it to hunker down, its lasers firing at an unseen enemy in the distance.

Mercy hovered over her team, analyzing their condition. It didn't look good for either of them, their skin blackened by full body burns and bleeding profusely. She had never allowed her teammates to get this injured before, she had always made sure to calculate around the unpredictable tides of battle, before and during a fight. She did everything in her power to keep her squad safe, yet: at the most crucial moment, she was unable to protect them. It physically hurt to see them in such a precarious state.

The Normandy landed only a few yards away and Mercy picked Javik up by the arm again, his body working on autopilot as she dragged him forwards. Wounded soldiers around the battle field stumbled towards the ship as if it were the last haven on earth, their comrades helping the incapacitated and providing cover fire from husks. Garrus raced ahead of her, climbing the Normandy's ramp.

"Here, take him."

Garrus caught Javik as she handed him over and she finally heard her prothean speak as he came out of the shock from his injuries.

"Commander," his voice was barely audible and laced with pain.

She slid down the ramp, bracing to run back into the kill zone. "You've gotta get out of here!" The Normandy was a sitting duck, it had go, _now_.

Javik shook his head; she could see the disbelief in his eyes. "This is where I belong."

Mercy steeled herself and flicked her eyes between him and Garrus as the command fell from her lips. "Don't argue with me."

"But I can still fight!"

He would hate her for sending him away but she had to do it. Mercy glanced behind her, at Harbinger as she slid another step away from the safety of her ship. She turned back to them and found Javik holding his hand out to her, leaning forwards against Garrus' restraining grip as he tried and reach her. Mercy's heart broke at the desperation in his face. She couldn't simply leave him like that, even with the world ending around her. She climbed back up to him and grabbed his hand that he used to pull her to him. He embraced her in a painfully tight hug, his whole body shivering in the wake his tangible fear that crashed into her upon contact with his skin.

"I need to know somebody is getting out of this alive," she muttered, her voice tight and threatening to crack.

Mercy pushed backwards, he didn't resist, and she gave him one last gift to take with him, the only one he would ever receive from her. She kissed the edge of his mouth. He released her in silent shock and she used the opportunity to escape his grasp, sliding down to the foot of the ramp.

"Go!"

The Normandy's ramp began to close as it lifted into the air. Garrus sent a silent, encouraging message to her through a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, and Javik called back to her one last time.

"Mercy!"

* * *

"Shepard, you have choice, more than you know. _This_ is for humanity. You _have_ to finish this."

The Illusive Man's hollow, mechanized voice rang in Mercy's ear, mimicking the warped VI program he had merged with. His plan to control the reapers had succeeded, somewhat, except for the fact that_ they_ were the ones who controlled _him_ now. The Illusive Man was trapped, either his essence or his memories, and the only control he had now was over his own voice which he was using to speak to her, pleadingly as his projection reached out to her desperately, needing her to finish what he had started. The crucible was the only thing leashing the sophisticated VI program that controlled the Illusive man from gaining access to its technologies, and was the key to harnessing the relay's powers for herself.

After years of fighting, billions of lives lost, friends and comrades who had sacrificed themselves to get to this point; it was hard to believe that everything came down to the next couple of minutes, and the fate she chose for the galaxy. The options presented were cruel, none of them a fairy tale ending; but then, when had life ever been kind to her?

_In small moments_, her subconscious answered. She had to cling to the small gestures of friendship, encouraging words and actions of her crew. They were her family and the reason she could keep on fighting, even now, scorched and blistered beyond recognition. A small part of her mourned the hair she had managed to grow out for the first time in her life, all of it was burned to thin strands, clinging to her sweaty forehead and barely long enough to brush the nape of her neck.

Mercy took a step forward, stumbled, and regained her footing with labored breaths. She couldn't stand straight; her back was hunched in unimaginable pain, and her head swam with fatigue. Never had she experienced such _agony._ It felt as if her skin would melt right off. The pain made it hard to think, her mind was clouded with doubt and clinging to the memories of her crew, trying to decide the ludicrous fate of the galaxy.

To her right was the embodiment of what she had set out to do, Destroy. It seemed as if her entire life had been devoted to that one goal. The reapers would be dead, if she proceeded, but so would EDI, and the geth. Legion had been one of her first real friends, a strange thought since he wasn't even fully sentient at the time. They had sat together many times on the Normandy, her explaining the curious habits of organics to Legion who in turn listened with rapt attention and inquired further. He was so eager to learn, to listen, and he had used those traits to give his life for his people, leaving her behind. When he had died, Mercy stayed temporarily on Rannoch to put a boot up anyone's ass if they dared to turn the sudden cease fire into an opportunity. A certain admiral was definitely not excluded… She was happy for the geth, she really was.

EDI was an extraordinary individual all on her own, a curiosity as much as a companion. Mercy had been wary of the ship AI the first time she boarded the SR2, but EDI had proven herself, her loyalty, and her resolve countless times. EDI had confronted Mercy, timidly, when she began to doubt her sentience and purpose. Mercy found she couldn't tell her that she was merely a machine; Legion had shown her that synthetics could be so much more.

Destroying all synthetic _life_ was out of the question.

Electricity sparked and arched its way across a panel to her left, Control. The Catalyst-The Illusive Man had urged her towards it, telling her it wasn't too late to harness the reaper's powers. With it, she could merge with the Catalyst- and she assumed the Illusive Man's- and her memories would be fed to the VI's computer, her morals would shape guide the reapers as a new program. The crucible would wipe the memory of the old one. The option sounded ridiculous, even to her fatigued mind. It went against everything she had fought against. The reapers warred through control; they manipulated people, their souls and their bodies. In a warped sense they were like the corrupted corporate owners she had been hired to steel data from. They indoctrinated people, slowly turned them insane until they began to doubt their own ideals; the Illusive Man wanted this corrupting power, and he bit off more than he could chew. Control was an abomination, a disaster that had already happened.

The final option made her pause. Mercy stood before a thick beam shooting from the crucible, its green electric energy making her hair, what was left of it, stand on end. The idea was for her to merge with the energy, to disperse her DNA and combine it with the technology that flowed within. The mixture would be dispersed through the relays, changing every being – organic and synthetic- into like creatures that possessed a little of both worlds. The Catalyst called it the ultimate solution, one that would only now work while the entire galaxy was united, moving towards the same goal- to stop the reapers. Mercy wasn't sure what would happen to the reapers, how they would be affected by this change, if they would keep on fighting. She would have to go on blind faith that the reapers would stop.

A convulsion of pain opened her hand and forced her pistol to clatter to the floor. It echoed hollowly, a dead weight, a machine without a purpose when there was no one to pull its strings. Mercy wondered if she could alter the DNA of every species, the thought scared her more than she cared to admit. Change had never frightened her, living on the streets had taught her to welcome it, it was the reason she had been able to become a soldier. If only Hackett could see her now, going from a wiry teenager with a bad crew cut, stealing his banking statements, to the soldier she was now. Javik certainly wouldn't approve, anything short of obliterating the reapers was not an option for him. Victory is never won without difficult choices, after all. Thinking of him made her smile, a ghosting, painful tug of her lips. Even if he hated her for it, she would stick by her decision, taking whatever backlash was thrown at her for it.

"I'm sorry Javik, everyone."

She bundled every ounce of strength she had left into her limbs, and ran for the beam, leaping into its heated, light green current of electricity. It engulfed her, set her world ablaze, corroded her, tore her molecular being apart as she wordlessly screamed, and dispersed all that she was to the universe below.

* * *

**Author's note: **As promised, I have a treat for those of you who read all the way through. I spent a good deal of time creating a video tribute for Mercy, and of course it possesses a strongly implied shavik. Delete the spaces, replace DOT with '**.**' and follow this link:** w w w DOT youtube DOT com / watch ? v = jZK2HWv9OIw**

**Plus my own opinion on the ending: **Honestly, synthesis is my least favorite ending. I didn't know Mercy would choose it until the very end. I was geared towards choosing destroy or renegade control, but for some reason the choice I had her make was the most 'organic' for her. I tend to choose the endings by the Shapards I play. Starbrat always bothered me, I had no attachment to his 'character' and I always thought the Illusive Man would be the final 'villain'. A man who's ambitions, and wrong way of going after good intentions, had become his undoing. I hope you enjoyed the read.


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